Campaign of the Month:
January 2012

Star Trek Late Night

Tirolian

While Tirol’s inhabited surface area is similar in size to Eurasia and Africa combined, its racial composition is dramatically more homogeneous than old world Earth. There are only three racial types, descending from Earth’s Caucasians, Dravidians, and Mongoloids. From this fact, it can be surmised that the original humans transplanted to Tirol originated in the Near East and Central Asia. In the six millennia between the arrival of humans on Tirol and the advent of civilization across the planet, the Tirolian peoples fragmented into four major language families, and innumerable tribes and ethnic types. Eventually, by a process of attrition and cultural assimilation, Tirol’s peoples began to consolidate, first into the great empires, then later into the major industrial nation-states. By the time of the advent of space travel in 652 C.E., only seven major languages were left, and four of those belonged to the ‘Tzen’ branch of the Orpelo-Sue’tonan language family. Increasingly, the dominant culture became that of the Tiresians, relative newcomers to Tirol’s ethnic mix. The earliest appearance of the Tiresians in the planet’s records dates back no further than 410 B.C.E., and they did not become prominent in world affairs almost until 360 C.E. By the emergence of the Zorrlev’dra Empire in 1361 C.E., Tiresian culture and language had penetrated to every corner of the globe, as a consequence of their political and economic dominance. Today, most of the ancient cultures and peoples are diluted beyond recognition, and their unique facets have been relegated to family- and place-names, and regional festival costumes. A singular exception are the rugged and independent-minded mountain people of the Rilac region, who have kept their language and customs over the many centuries.

Tirolian culture, and by this one means Tiresian culture in particular, is very superior in its outlook. After a thousand years of being an interstellar power dominating hundreds of alien worlds and a thousand colonies of all sizes of their own, Tiresians grew to look upon themselves as the highest expression of civilization in the Galaxy. The maintenance of the ancient forms of government and the creation of monumental architecture became paramount in the Tirolians’ priorities. The Zorrlev’dra Ertulve and Masters were seen by many on Tirol as having abandoned their duties to the state, as they abandoned Tirol itself, but the Tirolian citizenry had neither the resources, power, or will to challenge the Empire.

Tirol’s myriad of pre-industrial cultures produced a flowering of mythic and religious literature over the millennia, though all share a common thread. In the variant of the myth the Tiresians inherited, the Tirolians were originally created by the supreme god Var’e, a solar deity representing both creation and destruction. Eventually, Var’e’s domain was invaded by the supreme evil entity in their mythos, called Adoyn’de, and the Tirolian race was abducted by a race of demonic dragon-like creatures called the P’tok, of which Adoyn’de was king. Brought down from Heaven as slaves of the P’tok, Tirolians eventually overthrew their masters with the help of the intercessory deity Fanto, in his first incarnation, Zor’de. Fanto’s third incarnation, Lanack, is said to have been born nearly six thousand years later, and to have taught the Tirolians the arts of civilization, after waging a century-long war against an evil king.

Eventually, the Fanto cults evolved into a number of national and sectarian deities, from which several major universalist philosophic religious systems emerged. These belief systems, however, died at the hands of the secularism of the early interstellar republics. In the following centuries, Tiresian philosophical thought, the dominant form, dwelt more on civic duty, familial obligations, and public morals than on transcendental or theological concerns.

Attributes

Skills

Typical Traits

Language: Tirolian(Fluent/R/W) (+4)

Language: Zentraedi (Flent/R/W) (+4)

Triumvirātus (+4)

New Trait: Triumvirātus (+4)

Tirolians have developed a system of psychic merging or minds. This merging grants them many advantages. When three Tirolians willingly bond as a Triumvirātus they become bound for life with as Three and may never choose to break or join another triumvirātus. Each of the three may substitute one of their own attributes with that of another’s in the group at the time of the merging. Any psychic powers that the three choose to use on each other, gain a +2 skill bonus. Also they all are aware of each others thoughts and emotions at all times regardless of distance. Lastly, any combined task made by the three with each other gains a +2 skill bonus to the roll.